Are you a NEW Teacher? Help is HERE!

Is this you? I chose these photos because they reminded me of myself at the beginning of my career (and every once in a while now 😂). I started teaching in 1999 and though it has been a difficult journey, I still LOVE teaching and have never considered quitting. But if you are feeling like quitting, I can understand how that can happen. 

College is great but coming out with a degree and a teaching certificate does not mean you are ready for all the classroom is going to throw at you! BUT...It's ok! You will get there! Things will get better!

When I graduated, I remember thinking, "I will find the perfect curriculum and use it forever!" Yeah...the perfect curriculum doesn't exist. Good teachers are constantly learning and growing and evolving as education evolves and they encounter different students and different situations. 

As you begin your teaching journey in your first classroom, you are going to have lots of questions and be unsure about many things. Every summer on social media I see so many budding educators asking for help with what they need and how they should set up their first classroom. That answer is not the same for everyone. However, here are some things that have helped me. Hopefully, they will help you too. 

Your first classroom is not going to look like one on Instagram. For one thing, the actual physical space might not be that great! There are water spots on the ceiling and stains on the carpet. The cabinet drawers don't pull out right and the shelves used to have doors but they all broke off. Instead of beautiful bulletin boards, you have ancient chalkboards that cover the walls. But this is what you've got to work with! 

This is my REAL classroom before and after. Is it Instagram-worthy? Probably not, but it has been a great space to learn for so many first graders over the past 7 years! And I am a veteran teacher. When you are first starting out, you're not going to have all the things and that is ok! Hint: you really shouldn't have ALL the things.

I used to go to the Target Dollar Spot and buy a bunch of stuff and then get it back to my crowded classroom and find it was a waste! Just say no! Unless you have a specific idea of how it is going to help your students, don't buy it! 

I used to have a ton of seasonal bulletin boards and borders. Changing those is so time-consuming.

Instead, put up the kids' work and anchor charts/posters that you are using during your lessons. And then when you aren't using them, take them down for less clutter. 

What is important? Things that are going to help students are important. 

• Unifix Cubes

Great for counters, game markers, and building.

• Base 10 Blocks

A must for teaching place value.

• Legos

Ask for donations. They are really expensive but many people have a huge box they need to get rid of! They will keep your students busy for a LONG time. I use them at dismissal time when there is a lot of waiting.

• 2-sided counters

I use these for math almost daily.

• Geoboards and colored rubber bands

I have several seasonal picture sets that the kids can make during centers. Great for teaching about geometry.

• Pattern blocks

I have several seasonal picture sets of these too. 

These dry-erase pouches are awesome! You can put a piece of paper in them and use it over! Laminated pages are hard to erase but they can easily be slipped in and out of these and they clean up great!

These dry-erase clipboards and relatively new, and I just got some to use this year. I use clipboards and dry-erase boards a lot but they each take up space. Combining them seems genius to me!

You need some kind of letter manipulative. I used to think I needed several kinds but I realized I was always grabbing the magnet letters. I don't generally use them on anything magnet though!

I use ALL sizes of popsicle sticks. I've made lots of centers with them. We use them to make puppets. We used to to tell whose plant was whose. 

They are great for equity sticks.  

Pocket Charts are great. I have several different sizes but one medium-size one can do the job.

I use these loose-leaf rings all the time for flashcards, centers, making books, and more. I have all the sizes! 

Storage is important and can get expensive. Some classrooms have great storage and some don't. As a TYPE A teacher, I like everything to have its place. I don't like to waste precious class time searching for things. I have a ton of drawers. 

Big ones, medium-sized, and small. 

The cart drawers are nice too. 

I also keep a lot of baskets of all sizes around, especially for centers. And I love these caddies for sharing supplies like pencils, erasers, glue bottles, etc.

These from Sterilite are my all-time favorite baskets. They are just the right size to hold a piece of paper and are practically indestructible. 

You can often find these toy storage organizers at garage sales and thrift shops. 

Something else you'll want a good supply of is 3M hooks and stickers. You'll want to hang things up and then hang them up somewhere else. 

I also use hook and loop dots a lot. Great for centers, name tags, hanging things up, and more. Just don't store them both in the same container!

Now I'm a bit of a children's bookaholic but having a classroom library is essential. I remember borrowing books from the local libraries when I first started teaching which was fine. Scholastic Book Club is a great way to get books inexpensively or FREE if your students' families buy things! 

You can also find great books at garage sales and thrift stores like Goodwill or Salvation Army. I always find tons of things I can use for a fraction of the price new!

I have thousands of books now but I didn't when I started!

I organize them by theme. This year I made these cute stick labels. 

I hope these tips help you as you start your teaching career! Good luck and I'm always available to talk to! mrsbates99@headfirstgrade.com

Math Talks: Practical Information to Get You Started NOW!

FLUENCY is a big buzzword in elementary math these days. Another one is NUMBER SENSE. Do you know what number sense means? Number sense has 7 parts:

• Counting

• Subitizing

• Cardinality

• More/Less

• Spatial Relationships

• Part-Part-Total

• Benchmark Numbers

ALL of these help with FLUENCY and can be tackled during Math Talks/Number Talks. Let's break down what each of these means.

We all know that counting is really important for young mathematicians. Practicing counting should be an everyday occurrence in early childhood classrooms. Connecting that counting to real-life is super important too. This is a good order to approach counting.

• Counting to 10-preschool
• Counting to 20-preschool
• Counting to 40-beginning K
• Counting to 80-middle K
• Counting to 100-end of goal in K
• Counting to 120-beginning of 1st grade
• Counting to 120 starting at any number-end of 1st grade

Connecting the numerals to counting can come as students are ready. Here is a great resource for this!

This 100/120 Pocket Chart resource has cards for all seasons and cards that alternate red/blue. 

Subitizing means we can look at a group of objects and tell how many there are without counting. Having items in a pattern like those of dice or dominoes makes this task easier. Generally, young children can subitize 3 items and eventually up to 5 unless they are in a pattern that can be memorized and then they may be able to recognize more.

Here is 5.

And this is also 5. You can see how the green dots are easy to subitize but for the red dots, you need to count or at least see that it is 3 and 2 more.

Cardinality means that you count the objects and you understand that the last number you say is the total number of objects. 

For this one, you might see the two red cubes and then count on: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. There are 10 cubes.

For this slide, you might count on more than once or you might see 3 and then count on the 7 more to also get 10.

More and less is comparing numbers. At first, we don't worry about using the greater than/less than symbols. Later these can start to be used. 

Measurement and graphing are nice connections to this number sense skill as well. And of course, subtraction: How many MORE red cubes are there than orange cubes. 

The way this one is shown makes it harder to compare. Students having their own blocks to manipulate helps them solve this problem. 

Having hands-on materials to explore is vital to successful mathematics instruction. Having the students build what they see helps them to really see what is happening and thus solve problems.

This is an example that could be used for teaching doubles and near doubles. 

5 + 5 + 1 = 11

5 + 6 = 11

Here is another.

6 + 6 + 2 = 14

6 + 8 = 14

Here is one that represents base 10 blocks. What do you see?

10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 6 = 76

which is essentially: 

(10 X 7) + 6 = 76

Having these blocks to visualize gives students ideas on how to devise a strategy to solve, even in algebra class!

Part-Part-Total helps students understand the relationships between the numbers in an equation. This is sometimes called part-part-whole but I like total better.

4-2-=2

This helps students with addition, subtraction, fact families, and even fractions and division. 

4 + 3 = 7

The benchmark numbers in our base 10 number system are numbers that end in 5 or 0 such as 5, 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, 1,000, 1,000,000.

Students who have good number sense can estimate how far away a number is from a benchmark number which helps them solve problems quickly.

76 + 19 is about 75 + 20 which is easier for our brains to deal with than the 6 and the 9 in the first problem. This example demonstrates why we should NOT be teaching carrying and borrowing until AT LEAST 3rd Grade. Solving problems horizontally lends itself to students using number sense to solve instead of traditional algorithms. This helps students build those problem-solving skills instead of procedural skills. Here's another blog post if you are interested in learning more about this.

Why is Common Core homework so hard for parents to help with?

A number path for K/1 and number lines for 2nd Grade and up is a great way to show these distances.

These triads help students understand this also. They tell which number the middle number is closer to. Using number lines that skip count are particularly helpful for this.

ALL of these Number Sense topics are important to teach during Number Talks. My Number Talks for K/1 resource will walk you through implementing this routine easily and successfully with teacher language, tips, and visual aids. OVER 1200 slides to spark math conversations in your classroom and get your students talking about how they are solving problems. Makes building Number Sense and practicing Mental Math a snap! This resource is digital and can be projected on your interactive whiteboard or used with Google Slides and Google Classroom. Click below to see it in my store.

Another great math resource that I mentioned above is Math Interventions Activities for Kindergarten, 1st Grade, and 2nd Grade. This HUGE resource contains hands-on materials and activities to help students with number sense, computation, and place value. Perfect for tier 2 and tier 3 Math RtI or MTSS Math Interventions. Also great for math centers, small group learning, and math partner activities. Click below to see this resource in my store.

I hope this makes you feel more confident in your Math Talks journey! As always, reach out as I LOVE discussing education with other educators. 

mrsbates99@headfirstgrade.com